The Myth of The Zero-Sum Pie Game

The zero-sum game theory, otherwise known in layperson’s parlance as the fixed pie quotient, in economics suggest that in order for one person to succeed in wealth another must decline in wealth; in other words, zero-sum game proponents suggest that there is an inverse corollary between the capital and prosperity of the one percent, those who reside in top one percent of a fungible income scale, and the incomes and impecunious nature of the ninety-nine percent, the lower quadrant on the economic scale. The wealth of the entrepreneur or capitalist’s must be taken from the hides of the proletariat, says the zero-sum game theorist. Of course this theory, in economics anyway, is an absurd fallacy.

The Montaigne Dogma (named after Michael de Montaigne who was a noted 16^th century French essayist), as the zero-sum doctrine is sometimes called, may exist among nations that do not operate under a purely free market system, but they are wholly anathematic to laissez-faire economics: when one economic agent produces a commodity or resource that another economic agent needs, then it could it can be accurately concluded that both agents needs and wants have been fulfilled.

Indeed, wealthy entrepreneurs, regardless as to whether they are nouveau riche or patricians, succeed in business and acquiring profits simply because they have found a way to, through either chiseled talents and prodigious amounts of grey matter–or perhaps both, ameliorate the pain and distress of their fellow human beings. When they produce a commodity or resource that enables others to more efficiently conduct their lives, the profits that they derive from that commodity could not possibly symbolize an inverse ratio between prosperity for some and poverty for others.

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